A New Memorial for Indianapolis Homicide Victims Will Be Built Out of the Guns That Killed Them

An Indianapolis firefighter is trying to turn weapons into art as a memorial for homicide victims—of which, sadly, the city has plenty.

A few weeks ago, Indianapolis was the site of the National Rifle Association's annual convention. At the same time, the city had its 50th homicide of the year, putting it on track to hit 150 homicides in 2014. That's 25 more than 2013, which was the highest number of homicides in seven years. To put this in perspective: Indianapolis has almost twice as many homicides per capita as Chicago, which had the most murders of any city in the country in 2013.

Ryan Feeney, a firefighter with his own forging business, is in the middle of creating a memorial to those homicide victims: a peace dove, built out of confiscated firearm parts provided by the Marion County sheriff's office. Some of those parts have even been used in the homicides the sculpture is memorializing.

That, Sheriff John Layton told Fox 59, was the point: "These aren't just stolen guns. These were actually guns used in crimes themselves, crimes that hurt people, guns that murdered people."

"I want to do this for the families of those victims," Layton said. "Maybe we can find a place of solace where they can actually gather around the peace dove in remembrance of the one they loved."

Right now, the dove is just a two-foot-tall model, but Layton is raising money so Feeney can create one twice as big, to be displayed somewhere yet to be decided.

This post originally appeared on The Wire. More from our partner site: